Michael Scheuer

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer once upon a time in the late 90's was the chief of a unit tracking the whereabouts and deciphering the meanings of the words of Osama Bin Laden. In 'Imperial Hubris' he weighs mostly in on the events post 9-11 that has led the United States into two conflicts into which it seems we have cornered ourselves with no means of exit without making an even greater mess. Written in 2004 the book is very much dated in terms of current events. Even so what unfolds show more between the covers can be useful in understanding the mindset of Bin Laden and the people who have rallied to his cause.
Some of Scheuer's comparisons can be hard to digest--for instance Bin Laden in another era and time might = Robert E. Lee. Scheuer does though argue for the need to respect Bin Laden and his aims in order for us to come to a clear understanding of what he wants and how we are going to deal with him. Simply casting insults at him and his cohorts from afar is not going to make them go away--it is more likely to turn him into a kind of a boogeyman you use to terrify yourself and/or your children. In this respect Scheuer even makes clear his dislike for the term terrorists those he considers to be insurgents or soldiers of a fundamentalist Islam.

According to Scheuer Bin Laden has six reasons for targeting the United States that he has been clear and consistent about for many years. They are 1) American support of Israel against the Palestinians 2) American troops in the Arabian penisula 3) American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan 4) American support of other nations particularly Russia, China and India in their oppression of Muslims 5) American pressure on Arab states to keep oil prices low (well I guess we don't have to worry about that one anymore) 6) American support for apostate and tyrannical Muslim governments including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan etc. etc.

Scheuer goes on to argue that the reasons for 9-11 aren't as the Bush administration would like us to believe--that we were attacked because of who we are--the real reason is for what we are and have been doing in the Muslim world for many years. The hatred is policy oriented. He argues further that we will never be able to battle with him effectively until we look beyond all the rhetoric and start taking he and his comrades in arms seriously--something in his opinion the White House--intelligence bureaucrats, the media and politicians in general are loathe to do.

Amongst other things he suggests cutting ties--at least somewhat with the state of Israel. Making real efforts to end our energy dependency on Middle Eastern oil. Changing foreign policy so it is more even-handed. Deciding once and for all either to pull out of Afghanistan and/or Iraq or going after the insurgents in both countries in the most brutal way possible using as an example William T. Sherman's swathcutting through the South in the Civil War keeping in mind that perhaps hundreds of thousands of people are going to die including many many times what we've lost in lives of American soldiers. He suggests we will not win by pussyfooting around--that either way we will not build a democracy where one is not wanted--so we should strip ourselves of the illusions that we are the only good guys in this war between cultures. A couple excerpts:

'The U.S. approach to Afghanistan must be judged one that is suffused with arrogance. Knowing nothing of what we were getting into, we staged a mighty air attack followed by a dainty ground war that limited U.S. casualties but allowed most of the enemy to go home with their guns. We next installed a puppet regime in Kabul with no credible members from the largest Afghan ethnic group--from which Afghan rulers historically come--and assigned it the task of pushing a Westernized political agenda unacceptable to the Afghans' tribal traditions and offensive to Islam. (This will sound familiar to those watching developments in Iraq.) In sum, our policies and actions in Afghanistan have marginally reduced the mobility there of al Qaeda and the Taleban, have reinvigorated a broad, popular, and predictable xenophobia toward foreign occupation--even among the late Masood's men, the bulk of Karzai's military, who will not trade Russian for U.S. masters--and have ensured the United States must soon decide whether to exponentially increase its military presence and wage a destructive nationwide war, or tuck its tail and skedaddle for home a la Vietnam and Somalia. As matters stand, Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, and their Gulf benefactors need expend only patience and the modest costs of insurgency to make America pay the extraordinary high price that, sadly, is the merited wages of arrogance and willful ignorance.' Goes on to quote Niall Ferguson describe America today as 'a colossus with an attention deficit syndrome'.

'What does it mean to be at war with Islam? It meands deadly, matter of survival businsess that must be taken more seriously than it has been to date. War is being waged on us because of what we, as a nation, are doing in the Islamic world. Bin Laden's September 1996 declaration of war specifies U.S. actions causing him to incite war. His declaration is a neutral, factual statement, parts of it like Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. As a sovereign state, the United States is free to decide and implement its policies and actions in the Muslim world. They have been designed by elected leaders to meet national interests, approved and funded by elected representatives, and validated repeatedly in presidential and congressional elections. To say America is responsible for the policies against which Islam is waging war is a truism, as it is to say that those policies have propelled us into a religious war. So, what does it mean to be in a war with Islam? First, it means we must accept this reality and act accordingly. Second, it means a U.S. policy status quo in the Muslim world ensures a gradually intensifying war for the forseeable future, one that will be far more costly than we now imagine. Third, it means we will have to publicly address issues--support for Israel, energy self sufficiency, and the worldwide applicability of our democracy--long neglected and certain to raise bitter, acrimonious debates that will decide whether the American way of life survives or shrinks to a crabbed, fearful, and barely recognizable form.'--then going on to say that our founding fathers knew well enough the costs of creating our country and that ideas about our way of life were not ones that could be assimiliated or easily assimilated elsewhere and that those founding fathers knew enough to leave well enough alone--that we should only be responsible for ourselves and our way of life.

So there is a lot to digest here and having finished it yesterday I don't think I've quite reached the point of full digestion. I liked it for the most part--agreed with most of its analyses but think I will be brooding over this one for some time. show less

Mr. Scheuer was a senior U.S. Intelligence official in the CIA, and has clear positions on what is being done wrong, and what needs to be done, to keep America and American citizens safe. He is critical of the Bush Administrations simplistic position that "... they hate us because of our Freedoms...".

Instead, Mr. Scheuer points out that the writings and speeches of Al Qaeda indicate that the key issues continue to be the presence of U.S. troops in "Holy Lands", the U.S. unabashed, show more one-sided, and unquestioning unilateral support for anything Israel does, and the U.S. continuing support of repressive Arab regimes such as in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. To more and more Muslims, the U.S. championing of Human Rights is hypocritical in that it only applies to enemies, but does not appear to apply to pseudo-allies like Saudi Arabia, (since we need their oil), or Egypt (if they maintain a peace treaty with Israel). Scheuer points out that these are the issues which must be addressed, and the causes of our troubles.

While taking issue with the Bush policies, hard core Party loyalists from both the Republican as well as the Democratic sides of the aisle can take issue with "Marching Toward Hell". Mr. Scheuer is clearly a Reagen Republican, but while criticizing the current administration's handling of the war on terror following 9/11, he's no supporter of Clinton's earlier actions against Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda either. The common theme is that neither the current nor previous Administration, in this ex-CIA manager's opinion, have taken the appropriate steps to combat radical Islam, and if the US is to succeed, the Country must change it's approach.

It's true that many Muslims may be offended by aspects of Western culture, organizations such as al Qaeda are not fighting against us because of our democratic system of government, our civil liberties, gender equality, or our policy of separation of church and state. Those among them who preach violence are prompted by specific US military, political, and econimic policies that create antagonism in the Islamic world. Those strategies convince many into believing their communities, lands, and religion are under attack. Mr. Scheuer makes the argument that the longer we continue to fight and remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, the more enemies we are creating. He is a supporter of the earlier Powell policy of , if faced with war, go in with overwhelming force, win quickly, and get out. The auther states that if our leaders fail to recognize the true issues, and US policies and rhetoric do not change, the west will continue to lose the war on terror. show less

Whether as man or myth, arguably no one since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has more profoundly affected American daily life than Osama bin Laden. As author Michael Scheuer argues cogently in his new biography of bin Laden, since his formal declaration of war against the United States in 1996, bin Laden has deliberately drawn America into armed conflicts of varying durations but substantial costs in Africa, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Since past is present's prologue, likely bin Laden will goad show more further American military action in the turmoils currently roiling north Africa and the Middle East. Using a plethora of authoritative sources, including most importantly the words and writings of bin Laden himself, Scheuer demonstrates that bin Laden attempts these manipulations to lure America into ruinous wars where victory is ever elusive but the prolonged loss of American blood and treasure is assured. In this concise and well-written book, former chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit Scheuer presents a compelling argument that American political, military and media leaders are engaged in mortal combat with a fabricated enemy of their own creation and preference, instead of with bin Laden himself. Scheuer's book is a valiant effort to present bin Laden the man, rather than the phantasm he's become in many American minds. Only when America understands the man and his true motives, strengths and limitations, says Scheuer, can America engage and defeat bin Laden in realistic and definitive terms. As America finds itself mired in the second decade of a multi-front Al Qaeda War bin Laden began during the Clinton administration, Scheuer's book should be mandatory reading both for anyone curious why this war rages on without seeming end, and for American politicians and generals eager to fight the enemy they have, rather than the one they imagine. show less

I read this at the beginning of 2005, which was a pretty good time given I read a good number of books. This was an interesting book. It discusses the issue with an emphasis on looking at it from Bin Laden's and the Middle East's point of view. It is clear that the author knows his material, which he presents in a thoughtful fashion with various examples to illustrate the arguments. He brings in history, political, cultural and other sources, many unclassified that anyone can read to show show more Bin Laden is not just a mere terrorist, but a competent leader of an Islamist insurgency. He also points out that Muslims hate the U.S. for its policies, not for their democracy, contrary to what every other demagogue or politician would have us think. Overall, an excellent book that more people should be reading to better understand the real nature of Al Qaeda's threat to the U.S. show less